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Fourth Victim Identified in West Oakland Building Fire

Some closure has been brought to
those affected by the second,
recent building fire in the Oakland area as officials announced the name of
the fourth and final victim of the blaze, a Nigerian man who studied
mathematics and computer sciences in the U.S. The road to resolution is long,
however, for approximately 100 building residents who were left homeless, and
for those left to wonder why the West Oakland building fire wasn't avoided in
the first place.

Victim Had Studied at University
of Cincinnati Before Mental Illness Struggle

After using fingerprints for
identification and tracking down the victim’s father in Nigeria, the Alameda
County Coroner has released the name of the fourth victim in the West Oakland
building fire. He was 36-year-old Olatunde Adejumobi, and he was living in the
building with the assistance of Urojas Community Services, a nonprofit and
master tenant in the building that aided those with mental health and substance
abuse issues. Adejumobi struggled with mental illness and had been living in
the building for about three years.

Photo Credit: KTVU News

Before he found his way to 2551 San Pablo Avenue, Nigerian Adejumobi had
studied at the University of Cincinnati, where, in 2004, he left in the summer
before his senior year to participate in a National Science Foundation program
at UC Berkeley. Though Adejumobi returned to Cincinnati, he did not complete
his degree.

One of Adejumobi's landlords in
Cincinnati, Louis Peerless, remembered him as being a "really nice
guy" who would write math formulas on notebooks and keep to himself.
Peerless also noted that it was clear Adejumobi was facing challenges with his
mental health.

Adejumobi left Cincinnati without
a word to Peerless, but he heard through others that Adejumobi had said he was
headed to San Francisco to look for his wife. In his time on San Pablo Avenue,
Adejumobi was known for his love of painting, his intelligence, and his
difficulty making friends.

All Victims Now Identified

With Adejumobi's identification,
officials have now identified all four of the victims whose lives were taken in
the West Oakland building fire.

Ashantikee Wilson

While little has been released
about 41-year-old Ashantikee Wilson, it's believed that she was Adejumboi's
roommate in room 223.

Cassandra Robertson

Fifty-year-old Cassandra
Robertson was the mother of two daughters, aged 22 and 17, and was known in the
building for walking her Yorkshire terrier, Brees, in the mornings. When she
19, Robertson moved to the Bay Area from New Orleans, and four years ago she
went back to Louisiana. After recently moving back to Oakland, Robertson had
decided to stay until her youngest daughter graduated high school.

LeAndre Johnson, Robertson’s
husband, returned to San Pablo Avenue with his brother Tywon Lee to mourn
Robertson. Speaking with ABC7News, Lee recalled Robertson’s communication from
inside the burning building through a phone call to her mother.

"Cassandra said the dog is
dead, she’s trapped, there’s too much smoke and she can’t get out," Lee
said.

Edwarn Anderson

Sixty-four-year-old Edwarn
Anderson was known throughout the building for being kind and helpful. He was
eager to help others and worked to maintain the building as much as he could.
In an interview with SFGate, second-floor resident Karen Redus remembered
Anderson fondly.

"He was the nice guy around
the building," Redus said. "If I needed somebody to talk to, I’d talk
to him."

West Oakland Building Fire Linked
to Safety Violations

The blaze at 2551 San Pablo
Avenue was determined to have been started by a candle. Marcelio Harris lived
on the second floor next door to the unit where he believes the fire was
started.

"The guy’s lights went out
and we gave him a big flashlight…but he went and did some candles. The candles
fell over and so when the fire started, it was on like a blanket," Harris
said in an interview with KTVU. Officials have since interviewed the person who
lit the candle.

While the candle may have been
the cause, the building has a lengthy history of safety violations and inspections
that discovered dangerous conditions.

Back in September of 2015, a
firefighter responded to a call at the building and noticed hazardous
conditions. Wishing to refer the information to the Oakland Fire Prevention
Bureau, he checked a box in the Fire Department software program, OneStep, and
assumed the information had been relayed. Unknown to the firefighter, the
system—which has been criticized by officials—cannot complete such referrals,
and the
box is only there to record that a referral has been made by phone or through
another method. In the last five years, the city had received 18 complaints
about the property, including electrical issues and structural deficits.

As recently as three days before
the West Oakland building fire, officials were documenting safety flaws in the
building. Fire inspectors who conducted an inspection recorded the lack of fire
extinguishers, smoke detectors in every apartment, clearly marked exits, and a
properly working fire sprinkler system, among other violations. Tragically, the
inspection was only able to highlight the conditions that contributed to the
fatal fire. Residents say that no sprinkler system was activated as they fled
to safety and that they did not hear fire alarms.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf
announced on March 31, 2017, that Oakland’s fire safety inspection program
would be overhauled and that the size of the fire prevention bureau would be
doubled.

Landlord Releases Statement

On April 6, 2017, Keith Kim, the
owner of the building set ablaze in the West Oakland building fire, issued his
first statement since the fire.

"We are in shock at this
tragedy," the written statement released by spokesman Sam Singer said. The
statement went on to say that Kim was "heartbroken" and then
addressed the battle between himself and Urojas over his attempted eviction of
the nonprofit as the master tenant. Kim said he was trying to evict Urojas over
a water bill that had not been paid for three years, while Urojas had gone to
an attorney to fight back, stating that Kim was not attempting to fix the
appalling conditions at the building and that he was using the
tragic Oakland Ghost Ship fire as a reason to remove
them.

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